The present invention relates to transport ducts in general, and more particularly to a transport duct for fiber flocks.
It is known, for instance from the published German patent application DE-OS No. 15 10 413, to supply two parallel columns of carding machines with fiber flock by means of a transport duct. It is also known from this published application to supply a column and a row of carding machines parallel thereto with fiber material by means of a transport duct. The transport duct in this instance runs in two straight portions parallel to the parallel columns, or to the parallel column and row, of carding machines. One of the straight portions of the duct is connected to the other straight portion of such duct by a U-shaped, softly or gradually curved connection portion. Because of this soft curvature, the fibrous material carried by a transport medium through the interior of the duct does not suffer any appreciable deceleration while traveling in the connection portion.
In providing a layout for machines to be supplied with fiber flocks, such as cards, carding machines or long staple fiber carding machines, it is often not possible to place the machines in rows and columns, as would be desired for optimum exploitation of the available floor space, for instance, because of the presence of support columns, projections, the shape of the carding room or the presence of other equipment. Thus, it is often necessary either to deviate from the optimum layout to be able to use a single transport duct for the supply of the fiber flocks to all of such machines, or to utilize more than one such transport duct, with additional complexity and expense.